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Your business has unlimited potential to grow when it targets the internet as its market. You need to have a blog, make sure your website meets your prospects expectations, and don’t stop with just a website.

I thought tip number five in this article would be a good introduction.

Blog posts are the bread and butter of any company’s online marketing – but it gets better from there. A good blog post can be extended to an e-book, shortened into a series of videos, parceled out into infographics, and much more. Each different format gives you the opportunity to reach new prospects and build your brand’s thought leadership chops. All this and you save time.

Content marketing will become even more important
Content creation and distribution will change radically

Although content marketing is effective, the channels, tactics and tools that marketers use will continue to evolve.

There are 13 content marketing trends that will dominate 2018. Six will be discussed in this article.

Trend No. 1– Remarketing Will Become the Engine of Lead Generation
If you have some existing customer data, setting up a remarketing campaign isn’t very difficult.
If you have an email list of people who clicked through on an offer without buying anything, you can create a Facebook custom audience to show them a discount coupon.

Or you might have a different custom audience for people who read 2 or more of your blog posts without signing up for any lead magnet.

If you have existing user data, you can start a remarketing campaign on these platforms:

When you visit a landing page and enter your name and email to download an eBook, the next time you visit the same site, you’re greeted by name and also shown more eBooks related to a particular interest. It’s obviously already being done, but more and more marketers will begin using personalization.

Trend No. 3– Brands Will Create More Super Niche Content/Sub-Brands
No matter what industry you’re in, you will need to create niche content if you want to thrive in 2018. For example, if you’re in the fitness industry you can sell related products and reports on fitness supplements.

Trend No. 4– Content Will Adapt to Natural Language Search
Due to voice search we’re moving into screen-less search. Voice searches already make up 20% of all Google searches on mobiles.

Since the way we speak is very different from the way we type, your content needs to adapt to natural language search. Instead of writing about “best small business marketing tools,” write about “What are the best marketing tools for small businesses?” Here are a few things you can do:

a) Write complete, full-sentence questions and answers in your articles, rather than breaking it up into several sentences.

Trend No. 5– There Will Be More Bite-Sized Content
Over the past few years marketers have created longer and longer content. Longer content does rank better in SERPs which is fine if that’s your intention. But if your target market is millennials you’re more likely to get positive ROI from shorter, visually-rich content.

Instead of creating long-form content, mix it up with long and short. Use tweetable graphics or sharable in-post graphics.

Trend No. 6– Influencer Marketing Will Change
Influencer is closing the gap with video advertising. Readers are sick of reading lengthy roundup posts with shallow, regurgitated insights, and they want more authentic stories and actionable knowledge.

Instead of aiming for volume, your key focus should be “collaboration” with influencers to create content that speaks to your and the influencer’s audience.

Steps to take:

a) Identify key brand or product influencers, either manually or through a platform like TapInfluence.

b) Create a marketing campaign directed at those influencers.

c) Create a secondary marketing campaign for the influencers to drive greater awareness to a larger set of target consumers (such as a snackable content from an interview/analysis).

d) Track key metrics relating to reach, sales and brand awareness.

That content marketing is here to stay is beyond question, but the way you create and distribute content will change drastically in 2018.

From blog posts and social media updates, we should see a shift towards video and niche-focused, personalized content. Bite-sized content should come back into vogue and marketers will increasingly turn to remarketing to reach their audiences, especially in B2B.

Email marketing is all about building trust and relationships so people will buy from you and maybe become a repeat customer.

Put your customers first by giving them helpful information and tips before referencing your products or services. Email marketing can be a fast way to reach thousands of customers.

Despite the false predictions by the so-called experts, email is not dead. Yet it’s only getting stronger and more powerful. The year 2017 proved this to all with 59% of marketers choosing email to be the most effective channel for generating the highest revenue.

If you run a small company or are thinking about starting a business, you may find that the world of blogging is something you want to be part of. It’s a great way to get the word out to consumers about your product or service.

As a business owner, the key to having a successful blog is keeping your goals clear and concrete at every step of your blogging journey. If you’re just learning about the exciting possibilities of blogging technology, it’s very easy to get sidetracked.

If you want your blog to succeed you need to stay focused. Write up a plan that includes how often you will update, how you will promote your blog and retain readers, whether you will feature photographs or video, and other aspects, and then stick to it with the same kind of determination that you used when you first started your business.

Blogging is an essential way to get your message out to others. You can incorporate text, pictures, links, short videos, or other media in your posts to make your content more appealing to readers.

There are many platforms for blogs that include WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Blogger, and Tumblr. There are pros and cons to consider when choosing a platform. You have to make an assessment and choose the one that best suits your needs for now and in the future.

WordPress.com is free but you will not technically own your blog. It can be suspended at any time, and .wordpress is in your domain name. WordPress.org is free, you have control and there are search engine friendly options, although you must pay a host to support it.

WordPress.org requires you to have some basic understanding of how the web servers and the installation process works. Although you can set one up in under 5 minutes, WordPress.org requires some technical skill for uploading files to a web server using FTP (file transfer protocol) and such.

Blogging for business is a way to showcase your passion and expertise and a way to brand yourself and your products. It allows you to present your knowledge and skills to the public. A good post length can contain as few as 350 to 400 words.

If you’re looking for a way to take your business to the next level, consider what starting a blog might be able to do for you.

If you have been thinking about blogging for business, now may be the time to start. Once you get your blog up and running and get a few followers your confidence will grow. Just take the first step.

I found this piece, by Christina Walker, on article marketing. She covers three tips for getting it right. You need to use high-quality article directories, convince readers that you are a reputable, trustworthy… Continue

“Every business is simply a set of systems and marketing just happens to be the most important of these systems.”

As marketing is a business system, treating it as such helps to take away the mystery of its function in your business which permits you to create consistent, predictable results from the operation of your marketing system.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” That also applies to business. Don’t depend on one source for all of your income. You need several ways to make money:

Sell information products
Sell other people’s products
Create a membership site
Create an online freelance business

You’ve got customers coming into your business every day and they are buying your products and services. Or you may be just starting a new venture. You might think the Internet is too complicated. You’re already too busy. So why do you need an online business? There are four reasons to have your business online that will probably make you reconsider.

Cost

With a traditional brick and mortar business, you have overhead costs for the space, stock, and staff. You can run an online business with just one person, a computer and Internet access. Setting up an online business requires a website. You’ll have to purchase a domain name and hosting which will cost a minimal amount – less than $50. You can do an online search for these and comparison shop.

Audience

You can potentially reach millions of people on the Internet, and target a specific audience to whom you can sell directly. These are prospects looking for your products and services.

Hours of Operation

With your online business you’re available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Since you’re working from your computer you can be available when you choose, sell products and take customer inquiries at any time of day or night, because you’ll be using automated systems.

Products

You don’t have to have your own products to sell. In a brick and mortar operation, you would buy stock from a manufacturer or wholesaler and then sell it. With an online business you don’t have to buy product or worry about delivering the product or sorting out the payment systems.
The product owner takes care of all that. This business model is known as affiliate marketing. It’s a good place to start when you’re new to online business.

You need a good business plan that incorporates your final goal and the steps to reach it.

Online marketing is using the internet, to reach people, to spread the word about you and your company’s products or services. It’s doing anything you can do online to get more people seeing what you have to offer and to get them to eventually buy from you.

In summary, the four reasons to have your business online are no overhead for a brick and mortar space, it’s cost effective, you can reach millions of people, No set hours of operation, and you can sell other people’s products as an affiliate marketer.

Although there are all kinds of variations, the bottom lines is that a sales funnel gives you a single place to advertise. You only need a single list of prospects, a single blog, a single squeeze page or LCP. You need one place to advertise.

If you have twenty-five different products, you don’t need to try advertising each one. You need a funnel with one defined entry point. Once people sign up to your list, in time they will find out about everything you have to offer, and find something they like and become a buyer / client. You may have two lists – one for those who have purchased and the other for those who have not. But, to start you only need one list. Building a list is one of the most important things you need to do.

Owning a WordPress dot org blog is the way to get organic (free) traffic. You can place your lead capture form on it and all your products and/or your affiliate merchandise.

Here are three technical aspect of setting up an Internet sales funnel. You need a:

1) Lead Capture Page (LCP)

A lead capture page is a web page you send your traffic to; make your main purpose clear, which is to click on the button and enter their information. Don’t have distractions on the page that keep them from seeing the call to action. You can do an online search for LCP examples to get an idea how they should look. Your LCP will direct prospects to your sales page.

2) Sales Page

Your sales page will provide a solution to prospects problems. You can use a video (bridge video) for an introduction where they can see you. Introduce yourself, relate to them, introduce them to the solution, and then send them to the sales page. Present a sense of urgency; limited time or limited space to bring them to the call to action. You can use the video before or after the capture page. It depends on what and how you’re promoting.

You might be promoting a webinar that shows the benefits of your product or service. In which case, you will have used a LCP to get signups, and then present an offer at the end of the webinar.

Make the bridge video short, concise, and to the point. It’s used to build a rapport with the audience. Then send them to a sales video which will be longer and presents the solutions and benefits to problems they may be experiencing. The next step is sending them to the sales page, which offers more details of your offer or product. Show your prospects the advantages of having or using it. Discuss the main points in more detail. Don’t list every little detail or feature or button; just the main points that relate to your audience or prospects. If you’re selling for someone other than yourself, the sales pages are usually already done for you.

3) Follow Up

You need a way to contact prospects; an email service to send all the information you’re obtaining from the LCP. This is the backbone of your funnel. This is where you send all the information from the capture page. You can search the Internet for such services. You want to continue to build rapport with the list of people you now have. You want to continue to build on your interaction with them. Do this with an email service which provides an autoresponder. This is the backbone of your sales funnel.

With an autoresponder you can set up follow-up emails for whatever you wish and for as long as you want. You can set these messages to go out at certain intervals and for whatever period of time you wish. If you have something special to offer at any point, you can send a broadcast just for that.

You’ll be well on your way to online business success using these 3 Technical Aspects of Setting Up An Internet Sales Funnel: A lead capture page, a sales page, and an autoresponder.